Imprinting sportswear has become common since World War II and has had explosive growth since the middle 1970's. Four types of design have had the most appeal: product-oriented; entertainment-oriented such as rock groups, sports teams and cartoon characters; local organizations such as softball teams, schools and clubs; and special events such as runs, special weekends and picnics. The last two types form the basis of custom garment imprinting.
A custom imprinted garment, such as a T-shirt is like a personal billboard. People can tell the world about some part of their interests. Such custom imprinted garments can enhance a person's identity and pride. In any college town there will be hundreds of unique T-shirts expressing all sorts of events, groups and interests. These T-shirts can influence how a person feels about himself as well as how the world reacts to him. Custom imprinted garments such as T-shirts are not part of the mass-marketed, branded products that the world is used to buying. Currently, custom imprinted garments such as T-shirts are made on a local basis by thousands of small shops who sell directly to the public out of their factories. The design process for such custom imprinted garments requires a great deal of skill. Either the customer himself must supply the skill or the retail store must employ a well-trained sales clerk. There are many design decisions that must be made in order to produce a custom imprinted garment and this choice process is typically not very well structured to enable the customer to make his design easily. Currently, because of this difficulty in specifying the design of a custom imprinted garment, there is little awareness of the availability and cost of such garments. Currently it is too expensive to order small quantities of custom imprinted garments. The typical sports equipment retail store would not employ such trained clerks and thus cannot sell such custom imprinted garments.
There is therefore a need to provide some manner for a customer to easily specify the design of a custom imprinted article in a manner in which the user can be easily led through the number of choices required and in a manner in which the production of a small number of custom imprinted garments is economical.
Similarly, a need exists for a customer to easily specify the design of other types of custom imprinted articles such as hats, notebook covers, signs, bumper stickers, umbrellas, cloth or canvas items, cups, coffee mugs, certificates, key chains, balloons, buttons, or business cards, among other custom designed items.